Get public external IP address

Question

I cant seem to get or find information on finding my routers public IP  Is this because it cant be done this way and would have to get it from a website

User · Answer

In theory your router should be able to tell you the public IP address of the network, but the way of doing this will necessarily be inconsistent/non-straightforward, if even possible with some router devices.

The easiest and still a very reliable method is to send a request to a web page that returns your IP address as the web server sees it. Dyndns.org provides a good service for this:

http://checkip.dyndns.org/

What is returned is an extremely simple/short HTML document, containing the text Current IP Address: 157.221.82.39 (fake IP), which is trivial to extract from the HTTP response.

User · Answer

With a few lines of code you can write your own Http Server for this   HttpListener listener   new HttpListener    listener Prefixes Add  http     PublicIP     listener Start    while  true        HttpListenerContext context   listener GetContext        string clientIP   context Request RemoteEndPoint Address ToString        using  Stream response   context Response OutputStream      using  StreamWriter writer   new StreamWriter response           writer Write clientIP        context Response Close          Then anytime you need to know your public ip  you can do this   WebClient client   new WebClient    string ip   client DownloadString  http   serverIp PublicIP

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I ve refactored  Academy of Programmer s answer to shorter code and altered it so that it only hits https    URLs       public static string GetExternalIPAddress                 string result   string Empty           string   checkIPUrl                          https   ipinfo io ip                https   checkip amazonaws com                 https   api ipify org                https   icanhazip com                https   wtfismyip com text                      using  var client   new WebClient                          client Headers  User-Agent      Mozilla 4 0  Compatible  Windows NT 5 1  MSIE 6 0                        compatible  MSIE 6 0  Windows NT 5 1   NET CLR 1 1 4322   NET CLR 2 0 50727                 foreach  var url in checkIPUrl                                try                                       result   client DownloadString url                                     catch                                                      if   string IsNullOrEmpty result                       break                                   return result Replace   n       Trim

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checkip dyndns org is not always works correctly  For example  for my machine it shows internal after-NAT address   Current IP Address  192 168 1 120   I think its happening  because of I have my local DNS-zone behind NAT  and my browser  sends to checkip its local IP address  which is returned back   Also  http is heavy weight and text oriented TCP-based protocol   so not very suitable for quick and efficient regular request for external IP address   I suggest to use UDP-based  binary STUN  especially designed for this purposes   http   en wikipedia org wiki STUN  STUN-server is like  UDP mirror   You looking to it  and see  how I looks    There is many public STUN-servers over the world  where you can request your external IP   For example  see here   http   www voip-info org wiki view STUN  You can download any STUN-client library  from Internet  for example  here   http   www codeproject com Articles 18492 STUN-Client  And use it

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private static string GetPublicIpAddress         using  var client   new WebClient                 return client DownloadString  http   ifconfig me   Replace   n

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You may use Telnet to programmatically query your router for the WAN IP   The Telnet part  The Telnet part can be accomplished using  for example  this Minimalistic Telnet code as an API to send a Telnet command to your router and get the router s response  The remainder of this answer assumes you are set up in one way or another to send a Telnet command and get back the response in your code    Limitations of approach  I will say up front that one drawback of querying the router compared to other approaches is that the code you write is likely to be fairly specific to your router model  That said  it can be a useful approach that doesn t rely on external servers  and you may anyway wish to access your router from your own software for other purposes  such as configuring and controlling it  making it more worthwhile writing specific code   Example router command and response  The example below will not be right for all routers  but illustrates the approach in principle  You will need to change the particulars to suit your router commands and responses   For example  the way to get your router to show the WAN IP may be the following Telnet command   connection list   The output may consist of a list of lines of text  one per connection  with the IP address at offset 39  The line for the WAN connection may be identifiable from the word  Internet  somewhere in the line     RESP  3947  17 110 226  13 443       146 200 253  16 60642      R  A  Internet      6 tcp   128  lt ------------------  39  ------------- gt  lt --  WAN IP -- gt    The output may pad each IP address segment out to three characters with spaces  which you will need to remove   That is  in the xample above  you would need to turn  146 200 253  16  into  146 200 253 16     By experimentation or consulting reference documentation for your router  you can establish the command to use for your specific router and how to interpret the router s response   Code to get the WAN IP   Assumes you have a method sendRouterCommand for the Telnet part mdash see above    Using the example router described above  the following code gets the WAN IP   private bool getWanIp ref string wanIP        string routerResponse   sendRouterCommand  connection list         return  getWanIpFromRouterResponse routerResponse  out wanIP       private bool getWanIpFromRouterResponse string routerResponse  out string ipResult        ipResult   null      string   responseLines   routerResponse Split new char       n               RESP  3947  17 110 226  13 443       146 200 253  16 60642      R  A  Internet      6 tcp   128        lt ------------------  39  ------------- gt  lt ---  15   --- gt       const int offset   39  length   15       foreach  string line in responseLines                if  line Length  gt   offset   length   amp  amp  line Contains  Internet                          ipResult   line Substring 39  15  Replace                       return true                       return false

User · Answer

using System Net   private string GetWorldIP         String url    http   bot whatismyipaddress com        String result   null       try               WebClient client   new WebClient            result   client DownloadString url           return result            catch  Exception ex    return  127 0 0 1         Used loopback as fallback just so things don t fatally break

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I find most of the other answers lacking as they assume that any returned string must be the IP  but doesn t really check for it  This is my solution that I m currently using  It will only return a valid IP or null if none is found  public class WhatsMyIp       public static IPAddress PublicIp   get  private set        static WhatsMyIp                 PublicIp   GetMyIp               public static IPAddress GetMyIp                 List lt string gt  services   new List lt string gt                           quot https   ipv4 icanhazip com quot                quot https   api ipify org quot                quot https   ipinfo io ip quot                quot https   checkip amazonaws com quot                quot https   wtfismyip com text quot                quot http   icanhazip com quot                     using  var webclient   new WebClient                foreach  var service in services                                try   return IPAddress Parse webclient DownloadString service      catch                           return null

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Answers based on using external web services are not exactly correct  because they do not actually answer the stated question          information on finding my routers public IP     Explanation  All online services return the external IP address   but it does not essentially mean  that this address is assigned to the user s router   Router may be assigned with another local IP address of ISP infrastructure networks  Practically this means  that router can not host any services available on Internet  This may be good for safety of most home users  but not good for geeks who host servers at home   Here s how to check if router has external IP     According to Wikipedia article  the IP address ranges 10 0 0 0     10 255 255 255  172 16 0 0     172 31 255 255 and 192 168 0 0     192 168 255 255 are used for private i e  local networks   See what happens when you trace route to some remote host with router being assigned with external IP address     Gotcha  First hop starts from 31   now  This clearly means that there s nothing between your router and Internet     Solution   Make Ping to some address with Ttl   2 Evaluate where response comes from    TTL 2 must be not enough to reach remote host  Hop  1 host will emit  Reply from  lt ip address gt   TTL expired in transit   revealing its IP address   Implementation  try       using  var ping   new Ping                  var pingResult   ping Send  google com            if  pingResult  Status    IPStatus Success                        pingResult   ping Send pingResult Address  3000   ping  ToAsciiBytes    new PingOptions   Ttl   2                  var isRealIp    Helpers IsLocalIp pingResult  Address                Console WriteLine pingResult  Address    null                     Has   isRealIp   string Empty    no    real IP  status   pingResult  Status                       Has   isRealIp   string Empty    no    real IP  response from   pingResult Address   status   pingResult Status                  Console WriteLine   ISP assigned REAL EXTERNAL IP to your router  response from   pingResult  Address   status   pingResult  Status                       else                       Console WriteLine   Your router appears to be behind ISP networks  response from   pingResult  Address   status   pingResult  Status                       catch  Exception exc        Console WriteLine  Failed to resolve external ip address by ping        Small helper is used to check if IP belongs to private or public network   public static bool IsLocalIp IPAddress ip        var ipParts   ip ToString   Split new             StringSplitOptions RemoveEmptyEntries  Select int Parse  ToArray         return  ipParts 0     192  amp  amp  ipParts 1     168               ipParts 0     172  amp  amp  ipParts 1   gt   16  amp  amp  ipParts 1   lt   31               ipParts 0     10

User · Answer

The IPIFY API is nice  as it can respond in raw text and JSON  It can also do callbacks etc  The only problem is that it responds in IPv4  not 6

User · Answer

With  Net  WebRequest     public static string GetPublicIP                 string url    http   checkip dyndns org           System Net WebRequest req   System Net WebRequest Create url           System Net WebResponse resp   req GetResponse            System IO StreamReader sr   new System IO StreamReader resp GetResponseStream             string response   sr ReadToEnd   Trim            string   a   response Split               string a2   a 1  Substring 1           string   a3   a2 Split   lt             string a4   a3 0           return a4

User · Answer

Expanding on this answer by  suneel ranga   static System Net IPAddress GetPublicIp string serviceUrl    https   ipinfo io ip         return System Net IPAddress Parse new System Net WebClient   DownloadString serviceUrl        Where you would use a service with System Net WebClient that simply shows the IP address as a string and uses the System Net IPAddress object  Here are a few such services     https   ipinfo io ip  https   api ipify org  https   icanhazip com  https   checkip amazonaws com  https   wtfismyip com text     Some services were mentioned in this question and from these answers from superuser site

User · Answer

When I debug  I use following to construct the externally callable URL  but you could just use first 2 lines to get your public IP   public static string ExternalAction this UrlHelper helper  string actionName  string controllerName   null  RouteValueDictionary routeValues   null  string protocol   null     if DEBUG     var client   new HttpClient        var ipAddress   client GetStringAsync  http   ipecho net plain   Result          above 2 lines should do it       var route   UrlHelper GenerateUrl null  actionName  controllerName  routeValues  helper RouteCollection  helper RequestContext  true        if  route    null                return route            if  string IsNullOrEmpty protocol   amp  amp  string IsNullOrEmpty ipAddress                 return route            var url   HttpContext Current Request Url      protocol    string IsNullOrWhiteSpace protocol    protocol   Uri UriSchemeHttp      return string Concat protocol  Uri SchemeDelimiter  ipAddress  route    else     helper Action action  null  null  HttpContext Current Request Url Scheme   endif

User · Answer

Fast way to get External ip without any connection Actualy no need any Http connection for that  first you must add NATUPNPLib dll on Referance And select it from referances and check from properties window Embed Interop Type to False  using System  using System Collections Generic  using System Diagnostics  using System Linq  using System Text  using System Threading Tasks  using NATUPNPLib     Add this dll from referance and chande Embed Interop Interop to false from properties panel on visual studio using System Net   namespace Client       class NATTRAVERSAL                 This is code for get external ip         private void NAT TRAVERSAL ACT                         UPnPNATClass uPnP   new UPnPNATClass                IStaticPortMappingCollection map   uPnP StaticPortMappingCollection               foreach  IStaticPortMapping item in map                                    Debug Print item ExternalIPAddress     This line will give you external ip as string                     break

User · Answer

Most of the answers have mentioned http   checkip dyndns org in solution  For us  it didn t worked out well  We have faced Timemouts a lot of time  Its really troubling if your program is dependent on the IP detection    As a solution  we use the following method in one of our desktop applications          Returns external public ip     protected string GetExternalIP                 try                       using  MyWebClient client   new MyWebClient                                  client Headers  User-Agent                      Mozilla 4 0  Compatible  Windows NT 5 1  MSIE 6 0                        compatible  MSIE 6 0  Windows NT 5 1                        NET CLR 1 1 4322   NET CLR 2 0 50727                     try                                       byte   arr   client DownloadData  http   checkip amazonaws com                          string response   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString arr                        return response Trim                                      catch  WebException ex                                           Reproduce timeout  http   checkip amazonaws com 81                          trying with another site                     try                                               byte   arr   client DownloadData  http   icanhazip com                              string response   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString arr                            return response Trim                                              catch  WebException exc                        return  Undefined                                                       catch  Exception ex                           TODO  Log trace             return  Undefined                     Good part is  both sites return IP in plain format  So string operations are avoided   To check your logic in catch clause  you can reproduce Timeout by hitting a non available port  eg  http   checkip amazonaws com 81

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Basically I prefer to use some extra backups in case if one of IP is not accessible  So I use this method    public static string GetExternalIPAddress                         string result   string Empty              try                               using  var client   new WebClient                                          client Headers  User-Agent                          Mozilla 4 0  Compatible  Windows NT 5 1  MSIE 6 0                            compatible  MSIE 6 0  Windows NT 5 1                            NET CLR 1 1 4322   NET CLR 2 0 50727                         try                                               byte   arr   client DownloadData  http   checkip amazonaws com                              string response   System Text Encoding UTF8 GetString arr                            result   response Trim                                              catch  WebException                                                                                                                 catch                                          if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       result   new WebClient   DownloadString  https   ipinfo io ip   Replace   n                                          catch                                                                if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       result   new WebClient   DownloadString  https   api ipify org   Replace   n                                          catch                                                                if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       result   new WebClient   DownloadString  https   icanhazip com   Replace   n                                          catch                                                                if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       result   new WebClient   DownloadString  https   wtfismyip com text   Replace   n                                          catch                                                                if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       result   new WebClient   DownloadString  http   bot whatismyipaddress com    Replace   n                                          catch                                                                if  string IsNullOrEmpty result                                 try                                       string url    http   checkip dyndns org                       System Net WebRequest req   System Net WebRequest Create url                       System Net WebResponse resp   req GetResponse                        System IO StreamReader sr   new System IO StreamReader resp GetResponseStream                         string response   sr ReadToEnd   Trim                        string   a   response Split                           string a2   a 1  Substring 1                       string   a3   a2 Split   lt                         result   a3 0                                     catch  Exception                                                                 return result              In order to update GUI control  WPF   NET 4 5   for instance some Label I use this code   void GetPublicIPAddress                  Task Factory StartNew      gt                                var ipAddress   SystemHelper GetExternalIPAddress                     Action bindData        gt                                        if   string IsNullOrEmpty ipAddress                           labelMainContent Content    IP External      ipAddress                      else                         labelMainContent Content    IP External                          labelMainContent Visibility   Visibility Visible                                      this Dispatcher InvokeAsync bindData                         Hope it is useful   Here is an example of app that will include this code

User · Answer

Using a great similar service  private string GetPublicIpAddress         var request    HttpWebRequest WebRequest Create  http   ifconfig me         request UserAgent    curl      this will tell the server to return the information as if the request was made by the linux  curl  command      string publicIPAddress       request Method    GET       using  WebResponse response   request GetResponse                  using  var reader   new StreamReader response GetResponseStream                           publicIPAddress   reader ReadToEnd                         return publicIPAddress Replace   n

User · Answer

Or this  it works quite well i think for what i needed   It s from here    public IPAddress GetExternalIP         WebClient lol   new WebClient        string str   lol DownloadString  http   www ip-adress com         string pattern     lt h2 gt My IP address is       lt  h2 gt       MatchCollection matches1   Regex Matches str  pattern       string ip   matches1 0  ToString      ip   ip Remove 0  21       ip   ip Replace                    ip   ip Replace               return IPAddress Parse ip

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I had almost the same as Jesper  only I reused the webclient and disposed it correctly  Also I cleaned up some responses by removing the extra  n at the end        private static IPAddress GetExternalIp            using  WebClient client   new WebClient              List lt String gt  hosts   new List lt String gt             hosts Add  https   icanhazip com            hosts Add  https   api ipify org            hosts Add  https   ipinfo io ip            hosts Add  https   wtfismyip com text            hosts Add  https   checkip amazonaws com             hosts Add  https   bot whatismyipaddress com             hosts Add  https   ipecho net plain            foreach  String host in hosts              try               String ipAdressString   client DownloadString host               ipAdressString   ipAdressString Replace   n                    return IPAddress Parse ipAdressString               catch                                       return null

User · Answer

I do it using HttpClient from System Net Http   public static string PublicIPAddress         string uri    http   checkip dyndns org        string ip   String Empty       using  var client   new HttpClient                  var result   client GetAsync uri  Result Content ReadAsStringAsync   Result           ip   result Split      1  Split   lt    0              return ip

User · Answer

public string GetClientIp         var ipAddress   string Empty      if  System Web HttpContext Current Request ServerVariables  HTTP X FORWARDED FOR      null            ipAddress   System Web HttpContext Current Request ServerVariables  HTTP X FORWARDED FOR   ToString          else if  System Web HttpContext Current Request ServerVariables  HTTP CLIENT IP      null  amp  amp                 System Web HttpContext Current Request ServerVariables  HTTP CLIENT IP   Length    0            ipAddress   System Web HttpContext Current Request ServerVariables  HTTP CLIENT IP          else if  System Web HttpContext Current Request UserHostAddress Length    0            ipAddress   System Web HttpContext Current Request UserHostName            return ipAddress       works perfect

User · Answer

string pubIp    new System Net WebClient   DownloadString  https   api ipify org

User · Answer

Best answer I found  To get the remote ip address the quickest way possible  You must have to use a downloader  or create a server on your computer   The downsides to using this simple code   which is recommended  is that it will take 3-5 seconds to get your Remote IP Address because the WebClient when initialized always takes 3-5 seconds to check for your proxy settings    public static string GetIP                  string externalIP                   externalIP   new WebClient   DownloadString  http   checkip dyndns org                 externalIP    new Regex    d 1 3    d 1 3    d 1 3    d 1 3                                                 Matches externalIP  0  ToString                return externalIP       Here is how I fixed it    first time still takes 3-5 seconds  but after that it will always get your Remote IP Address in 0-2 seconds depending on your connection   public static WebClient webclient   new WebClient    public static string GetIP         string externalIP           externalIP   webclient DownloadString  http   checkip dyndns org         externalIP    new Regex    d 1 3    d 1 3    d 1 3    d 1 3                                         Matches externalIP  0  ToString        return externalIP

User · Answer

static void Main string   args        HTTPGet req   new HTTPGet        req Request  http   checkip dyndns org        string   a   req ResponseBody Split           string a2   a 1  Substring 1       string   a3 a2 Split   lt         string a4   a3 0       Console WriteLine a4       Console ReadLine        Do this small trick with Check IP DNS  Use HTTPGet class i found on Goldb-Httpget C

User · Answer

I found that http   checkip dyndns org  was giving me html tags I had to process but https   icanhazip com  was just giving me a simple string  Unfortunately https   icanhazip com  gives me the ip6 address and I needed ip4  Luckily there are 2 subdomains that you can choose from   ipv4 icanhazip com and ipv6 icanhazip com            string externalip   new WebClient   DownloadString  https   ipv4 icanhazip com             Console WriteLine externalip           Console WriteLine externalip TrimEnd

User · Answer

Using C   With webclient its a short one   public static void Main string   args        string externalip   new WebClient   DownloadString  http   icanhazip com                    Console WriteLine externalip       Command Line  works on both Linux and Windows   wget -qO- http   bot whatismyipaddress com   OR  curl http   ipinfo io ip

[c#] Get public/external IP address?

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